by Vanda Symon
I sat down at Gaby’s dressing table. Again, everything was orderly. Wooden jewellery box in the corner, an attractive cane basket containing hairspray, moisturisers, fragrance. I picked up her bottle of Coco Chanel and inhaled the remnants of scent around its neck. Warm, spicy, exotic. It brought to mind richly decorated pavilions draped with exquisite tapestries: Gaby had sophisticated taste in perfume. I supposed it was a small consolation for moving from the city to the back of beyond. She maintained some standards. Her silver-handled mirror in the middle of the dressing table looked out of place without a matching hairbrush. I assumed she’d had one and the police had kept hold of it for fingerprints and DNA. I hoped they would return it soon, the table looked incomplete without it. It was quaintly old-fashioned for a city girl.
My eyes were drawn to a silver-framed photograph of the family in happier days, Angel held between her adoring parents. I looked at Gaby’s features and couldn’t help but compare them with my own. I looked at my reflection, turning my head slightly to catch the profile. We both had dark blonde hair, although Gaby had been blessed with curls, whereas mine only carried a wave. With hair like that I’d have kept it long, not cropped short as she had. Both of us had brown eyes and full mouths, but that’s where the similarities ended. Gaby had a strong angular nose, whereas mine was nothing of note. She had classically arching eyebrows framing almond-shaped eyes that sat atop highly defined cheekbones. It was a face that turned heads and loved the camera. I’d always considered myself to be attractive enough, but no one feature of mine stood out. Perhaps my eyes, which were large, but I certainly didn’t have ‘bone structure’.
I had to admit to feeling diminished by this woman, but that was probably dictated by circumstance, as well as her appearance.
I pulled open her top drawer. This one contained an assortment of make-up and jewellery. I scanned its contents, not wanting to disturb anything, and closed it again quickly. Other drawers contained clothes and underwear. I didn’t examine them too closely; it seemed too intrusive.
I sensed rather than saw Lockie enter the room, and felt the tension in his body. The sight of me sitting at his wife’s dresser must have been disconcerting.
‘Did the police take many of Gaby’s personal things?’ I asked. I tried to sound professional, even though I felt like I’d just been caught with my hand in the till.
‘No, not really. A couple of blokes came and told me what they’d removed. I didn’t recognise them. I assumed they were the out-of-towners.’
That was odd; I’d have thought they’d send a local detective, someone familiar.
‘Who have they got liaising with you now?’
‘Actually, it’s your boss, Ron Thomson.’
‘Oh.’ That could potentially make life difficult. ‘You realise that he would not be very pleased to find me here, and he would be very upset if he found out I was doing any investigating.’
He sort of smiled. ‘Don’t worry, he won’t find out from me. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care who gets to the bottom of all this, as long as someone does. I just want to know what happened and make sure the bastard who did it rots in hell.’
‘I presume you mean jail, Lockie.’ Having seen him in action with Walden, it was apparent he wouldn’t shy away from a bit of personal retribution.
He just shrugged.
I was going to change the subject, but there was still the news I’d stored away from my conversation with Paul Frost. I tried to be casual.
‘Did you know that Dr Walden has had a vasectomy?’
‘Really?’ Lockie’s face lit up immediately, and then just as quickly darkened. I could see the full realisation of his loss hitting home once again. He turned away, his chin quivering and headed towards the door.
It seemed to be my function in life to reopen his wounds.
‘One more thing, Lockie,’ I said, and followed him into the hall. ‘The other day you mentioned Gaby had been doing some study. What course was she doing?’
‘Journalism,’ he said. ‘She was doing a correspondence course, something to keep her sane, she said. She was really enjoying it and seemed to be getting good reports from her tutor.’
It was as good a place as any to get a feel for what made Gaby tick: what she was interested in and cared about.
‘Do you mind if I have a look at her course material?’ I was curious to see what she had found to write about in these quiet parts. ‘It is still here, isn’t it, or did the detectives take it?’
‘They didn’t mention taking it. Come and have a look for yourself. She worked down here in the spare room – all her notes and things are in here.’
We walked into a beautifully sunny bedroom. As well as housing a double bed, with what I guessed was Leonore’s suitcase placed on it, it had a large desk, bookshelf and the trappings of an office – notepads, pen holder, cork board with clippings, notes and pictures attached with colourful pins. Again, there was a framed picture of the perfect family in the corner.
‘Where did she keep her course material?’ I asked, still a bit loath to ferret it out myself.
‘She had a big folder and a file box she kept everything in,’ Lockie said, opening a few drawers. ‘They should be in … ah, here they are.’
The bottom drawer held a large silver-coloured ring binder with Journalism Course emblazoned across the front, as well as several clear pocket files. Lockie pulled them out and placed them on the desk, then pulled out a file box from another drawer. There looked to be quite a bit of material there – more than a five-minute casual glance would cover. ‘Would you mind if I took these things away, to have a really good look through?’
He hesitated a bit.
‘I’ll be very careful with them. I want to get a feel for what Gaby was doing. There may be something useful or relevant to our understanding of the case.’
‘You think it had something to do with her studying?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. There just seems to be no apparent reason why she was killed. It was highly organised; in fact, it makes me think it might have been a professional job.’
The other officers had clearly not mentioned that suspicion.
‘A hit?’ When he could finally spit the words out, his face was a study in incredulity. Life had been a continuous series of shocks for Lockie these last few days; repetition hadn’t dulled his sensitivity to them at all.
‘A hit. So I have to ask myself why? The only thing I can think of, besides drugs – and to be honest Lockie, you don’t have the trappings of wealth I’d associate with a good income from drug money – the only thing I can think of is that she stumbled onto something accidentally and was seen as a risk.’ I let that sink in for a few seconds, then continued. ‘If I could find out what she was doing in the weeks leading up to her death, and followed her trail, I might find something. This seems like a logical place to start looking.’ I indicated the pile on the desk.
‘I would also need to look at her computer.’ Come to think of it, where was the computer? I didn’t recall seeing one in the lounge, or anywhere else in the house, and there were no telltale cables or even a printer in here. ‘Did the detectives take Gaby’s computer? I assume she had one?’ I asked.
‘Computer? Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Gaby had a laptop, but Angel knocked a cup of coffee over the keyboard, so it’s been in getting fixed, over in Gore.’
‘So the detectives don’t know about it?’
‘No, I guess they don’t. Should I have told them?’ He looked concerned, as if he’d done something wrong. How could I reassure him and yet get him to do something not strictly legal?
‘It may have been helpful to their investigation, but then, they didn’t ask about one, did they?’
‘No, they didn’t.’
‘So you weren’t withholding anything. You overlooked it, which is perfectly understandable considering what you’ve been through. And they overlooked the possibility too.’ I was rather surprised about that. I would have thoug
ht they would assume everyone nowadays owned a computer. But then, the rather sudden and awkward transition of my being in charge and then turfed off the case and the lack of official handover may have caused that one to slip by for the moment. I was certain someone would think of it soon.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said. ‘So what should I do about it?’
I tried to play it cool. ‘How would you feel if I went and picked up the computer, had a look at it first, and then brought it back, so you could hand it over to the police?’
His eyes widened. ‘I could get into a lot of trouble doing that, couldn’t I?’
‘I’d be the one who’d get into trouble, but they don’t need to find out. If they do, I’ll say I collected it without your knowledge. It wouldn’t reflect on you.’
He didn’t seem convinced.
‘Look, Lockie. Gaby’s computer could hold the one piece of information we need to understand all this. It could be the key.’ I was overplaying it a bit, but it was for a good cause.
He heaved a sigh of resignation. ‘Take what you want – take the computer, take it all. I don’t care any more. Just find out who did this.’
I smiled at him, trying to be reassuring, and couldn’t help but reach out and touch him on the arm.
‘Thanks. I’ll be careful. Do you know if Gaby used passwords? Did you use the computer much?’
‘Hate the things. I don’t use it at all – wouldn’t know how to.’ He always had been a bit of a technophobe. The only piece of gadgetry I knew him to be fully conversant with was the TV remote control. He had a complete grasp of how that worked.
‘OK. I’ll get everything back to you as soon as I can.’
I leaned closer to Gaby’s noticeboard and had a last look across the desk for anything else that could be of use. The sun had reached the corner of the desk, bathing the pens and notepad in light; its slanting rays cast shadows into tiny indentations on the pad. I scanned the smiling faces of the real-estate agents printed on it – then it hit me.
‘Lockie, is that the same pad the note was written on?’
‘The note?’
‘You know, Gaby’s note.’
My meaning finally dawned on him. ‘Yes, I think it is.’
‘Is it usually kept in this room?’
‘No, it’s normally by the phone in the dining room. Leonore must have tidied it away here.’
The page on which the suicide note was written had been ripped off when we found it. The pad must have been near by but I hadn’t noticed it – I’d have to look through the scene photographs later. Oh Christ, no I wouldn’t; I wasn’t on the case any more. I wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the photographs. I decided to conduct a little experiment.
‘Lockie, could you get me a crayon, please?’ He looked at me as if I’d lost the plot. ‘I just want to try something. If you haven’t got a crayon, a pencil will do.’
‘There’ll be a crayon somewhere around,’ he said, and wandered off to hunt.
The Boss’s words about contamination of evidence came to mind. Using a pen so that I didn’t actually touch the notepad, I folded over the top page and looked at the one beneath. There appeared to be an impression still there.
Lockie came back in clutching a green crayon. He handed it over, then hovered behind me as I carefully ran the crayon diagonally back and forth across the entire page. It wasn’t a sophisticated way to try and bring to light what had been printed, and it was a far cry from the methods used by the forensic-documents folk, but it worked. Even though this page would have been at least three down, the message that was embedded into its surface was loud and clear. The gasp behind my shoulder told me Lockie could see it too. Standing out in white lettering against the waxy green background were the words ‘The Telemax man is killing me’.
Goosebumps erupted across my skin. ‘Is that Gaby’s handwriting?’
‘Yes.’ The word sounded choked.
‘I wonder where the original page went? Perhaps the killer found it?’ I said, my thoughts thrown out loud. But the words looked hurriedly scrawled, and she must have pressed down pretty damned hard. No, if she’d gone to the trouble of writing it, she’d probably hidden it. Nothing had been discovered on her body, so the note would have been left in the house.
Poor Gaby must have invited her killer in, thought he was a tradesman. That might explain why Radar was shut in the bedroom. She’d probably put him there to keep him out of the way. The suicide note had been found on the table. I rushed back to the dining room, got down on my hands and knees and had a good look at the underside of it. There was nothing there. I did notice the table had a small hidden drawer at the end, so clambered out and opened it. All it contained were place mats, coasters and crumbs. No note.
Lockie watched on, curious.
‘The original note has to be somewhere,’ I said. My eyes scanned around the area. Everything was so spick and span. For all we knew, Leonore could have cleaned away her daughter’s last desperate plea. ‘It could have gone out in the trash and no one even noticed.’
‘Are you going to show that to the police?’ Lockie asked, his voice a mix of concern and accusation.
What kind of person did he think I was?
‘Don’t be bloody stupid. Of course I am. This is solid evidence. I’m here to help the case, not hinder it. I’ve got a friend at the station I can tell about this. They’ll probably want to get on to the rubbish search immediately. At least it will give them a decent lead to follow. They’re at a bit of a loss. This ties in with Mrs McGann’s sighting of a work van in your driveway too.’
The blank expression on Lockie’s face told me he wasn’t being kept informed.
‘I’ll collect Gaby’s computer and I’ll take away her study materials to look at this afternoon and see if they bring anything into context. Let’s see what she was into. I’ll need a car, though – they took the police truck off me. Can I use one of yours?’ When in doubt, take the direct approach.
Lockie looked towards the garage where Gaby’s car was parked. As if my sitting at her dresser was bad enough, my using her car was apparently too much for him to entertain.
His voice was steely. ‘You can take my truck. You’re not having Gaby’s car.’
I was grateful for anything, so Lockie’s old Toyota Surf would do me just fine. ‘I promise I’ll look after it. I might even wash it for you.’
I tried to make light of it, but I could see by his dark look that Lockie had had his fill of the ex. Gaby’s funeral was the next day – I could forgive him for a bit of animosity.
I took the keys and beat a hasty retreat.
29
I’d just lifted Gaby’s documents onto the passenger seat when the crackle of gravel under rubber announced the arrival of another vehicle. I looked up in time to see Cole pull alongside. He wound down his window and leaned out with his elbow over the side. He had a strange expression on his face.
‘Sam,’ he said, his usual spartan salutation.
‘Hi Cole.’ I tugged the bottom of my T-shirt down over the top of my jeans. ‘I’m just borrowing Lockie’s truck for a while, until I get a work one back again.’ Why did I always feel the need to explain myself?
He looked at the pile of papers and folders I’d arranged on the seat. ‘What’s all that for?’ he asked.
‘Just some of Gaby’s things. Lockie said I could take them to have a look through, see if I can find some new leads on the case. There haven’t been many so far.’
He looked at me for several moments, and I could feel the heat gradually work its way up my face. ‘Should you be doing that?’ he asked. It was a perfectly valid question, but I couldn’t help but feel chastised.
‘Officially, no, but unofficially I think I’m more in a position of trust with Lockie and the locals than any of the flash detectives they’ve brought into town. I might find some scrap of significant information where they wouldn’t – local knowledge and all. Anyway, if they thought it was of any consequenc
e, I’m sure they would have taken it all away for examination by now.’
My, how I jumped on the defensive, and I felt damned annoyed with myself for it. I didn’t have to justify myself to Cole. Lockie was the one who counted.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Good luck, then.’
‘Yeah, thanks, Cole.’
I shut the door and slunk around to the driver’s side, face still aglow. Bugger it. Why should I feel like the criminal? I could be a stupid cow sometimes.
30
Cross-legged, I sat on my bed and settled in for an afternoon of research with Gaby’s course material spread about me, smorgasbord style. It didn’t take long before I had to make the grudging admission that this woman was really good. Her writing style was concise, flowed easily and was very readable. Her tutor seemed to agree with me – all of her assignments had great assessments.
Gaby appeared to have been highly organised and capable, so I was still puzzled that she didn’t seem to keep an appointment diary. When I’d asked Lockie about it, he’d directed me to a little diary near the phone, a giveaway from the local pharmacy. Now, of course, even that diary was admitted as evidence and out of my reach. I had flicked through it briefly on the night she went missing, but didn’t see anything that could be of interest. It had a few coffee dates and birth dates written in it, but that was about all. Perhaps she had a great memory for times and dates. Me, I had to write everything down, otherwise I knew damned well I’d forget something. My world ran off to-do lists. The other alternative was she kept an electronic diary on her phone, but likewise, that was held in evidence and out of my reach for now. If she did, I might be able to access it from her laptop later.